NinetyForChill - The #Podcast: "Spiral" from the Pod of Skimble

    

NinetyForChill.com: The Podcast

Episode 27: Spiral from the Pod of Skimble

(Skimbleshanks likes to emphasize the verb in his name).

This is the first podcast that I was waiting for the film's home release to drop. My return to the cinema started with "Spiral: From the Book of Saw". Because I saw the last show in Champaign/Urbana, it did not make much sense to talk about this return to my favorite horror franchise until the DVD and Blu-rays dropped.

When I saw this film, there were only two other people in the theater. This feature was the number one film in the United States at the box office for two week, but still only grossed 35 million. In other words, people were not quite ready to go back to the theaters during, what I hope is, the beginning of the end of the pandemic.

With that statement, I think I have the plot for "Spiral 2". "Saw" works best when it has a message. The pro-socialized medicine tale gave "Saw VI" some extra charm. "Spiral" was ahead of the game when it came to All Cops Are Bad.

With the lack of people getting to the cinema, I feel I am definitely in the minority when it comes to the exposure of the flick. Thus, this podcast will be me just letting you know how I felt about this latest attempt to continue the IP. It is not "Repo: The Genetic Opera", but it has all the qualities that made Darren Lynn Bousman a reliable hand to helm a horror movie.

 

This may be odd for a podcast, but I think that I have avoided letting any spoilers slip. I apologize if you wanted all of the secrets revealed to help motivate you to possibly pick up the Steelbook release. It is a partial effort to allow me to grab one for myself. If it was not for Steelbooks, what is the current point of physical media?

Next week's show is looking promising as we focus on a couple action movies. It will be asked, why did Jean Claude Van Damme get to be the late 80's and early 90's reasonable budget action star instead of Dolph Lundgren.

I would not mind being a couples week ahead when it comes to content, so I would love to hear from you with ideas on what to chat about. Frankly, it would be honor to host you and find out about why you offered your incite. Send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com with a movie, theme, director, or actor. If you promise to center the topic around movies between 74 and 99 minutes, audio gold should be the product.

 

If you need some suggestions, movies like "Fear of a Black Hat", "UHF" and "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" can make for a great theme. ThePoeticCritic knew that Robert Downey Sr.'s satirical masterpiece, "Putney Swope" fits the pod's time restraints. There are also Tim Burton's early classics "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" and "Beetlejuice". Or we could just focus on movies Danny Elfman scored.

 

I have been asking for weeks for assistance in composing an episode dedicated to vampire features like "The Lost Boys" trilogy, "Near Dark", and the "Underworld" movies. Here is to hoping that this bunch of critiques will stir up some inspiration in my audience to step up and hold off on the garlic. If this is a topic you up for discussing, feel free to send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All I need is a half hour on Zoom to get this done. 

 

I hope I am impressing or at the very least amusing you with this podcast and I am open to any and all criticism. My biggest want is more guests and more suggestions on what to chat about (@catbusruss, russthebus07@gmail.com@coolmoviesdarth). If we can get 3 hours out of "Little Nicky", the possibilities are endless. Thanks for visiting.

 

After WrestleMania Backlash, I will tell you that we need to take zombie pro wrestling back. My suggestion is that we finally get my low-budget zombie movie, "Main Event of the Dead" off the ground. The script lacks a lumberjack match, so you know it has got to be better than the "Army of the Dead" advertisement. Ask for a treatment or give me suggestions on how to get it to a crowd-sourcing stage with an email to russthebus07@gmail.com.

 

Saw 3D (The Final Chapter): Star Trek of Horror?

"Saw" had just reached the same number of "Star Trek (Original Series)" films. With an open ending that may introduce a new character to focus on (Antagonist or protagonist is dependent upon you interpretation of John Kramer's mission.) like "Star Trek: Generations", a new series maybe created. But what makes "Saw" most like "Trek" is that there maybe a number curse to the series (This review was written after seeing this film in theaters.) That is a bit of a stretch since "Saw" and "Saw 5" are worthwhile, but with the quality of this feature, Twisted Pictures may as well called this one "Saw 7"

Det. Hoffman is still carrying on Kramer's work, but vengeance clouds his mind. I suppose having half your face ripped open by Jill Tuck, Kramer's wife and fellow game practitioner, will do that. While Bobby, a man who has become famous by claiming to be a Jigsaw survivor, is being tested, Jigsaw's last known apprentice is planning to settle his score with Tuck and a rival detective from internal affairs.

Hopefully, that description of "Saw 3D: The Final Chapter" did not spoil anything for you. This simplicity maybe what holds the film back from being worthwhile despite brilliant makeup and 3D effects.

The best films in the series are dependent upon being more clever than brutal. "Saw 3D", being the final chapter, horror aficionados Melton and Dunstan felt it was more important to get every gross thing we had not seen than providing a enjoyable story.

To claim this film as awesome, you may need to be a perverse individual. You have to solely enjoy gore. This "Saw" does not justify why it is inescapable. Extreme gore is fun, but only if there is a good reason for it. This is why the first two "Feast" films (written by Dunstan and Melton) were fun, and the third making us call bullshit.

Perhaps Costas Mandylor was misused while Tobin Bell was underused. This film has the highest body count of the series (and perhaps equal to all of the films combined). Most of them are innocents which is unlike the past films while Hoffman is near super human in his march for vengeance. Not only do the games' contestants have hopeless situations, anyone who is not the murderer is as well.

The best thing about "Saw 3D" is the use of 3D. As long as there are thing being constantly thrown at the audience, we ignore how poor the direction is. The traps are also suspenseful, but that may be due to wanting to see at least one person get away.

Do I want there to be a "Saw 8"? Yes, the ending offers a potentially brilliant Jigsaw and there have to still be some great trap ideas left. But like "Saw 4", we need new blood to revive the story.

"Saw 3D is not the worst of the franchise, but it is clear that Patrick Melton and Mark Dunstan have run out of ideas for this franchise. We maybe out of fake blood as well (This is before the abundance of CG blood, so I may have predicted that). With a series that does not require a real villain, how can we be out of good stuff?

Saw 3-D - AllPosters.com

90-Min. Rewatch - "Jigsaw" and Trading Control for Trauma (The @bandanadeb Agenda).

*Blog post started on July 23, 2020.

I think I might have my finances in order, so I am more stressed out than ever. This proves that I am not an optimist because I am obviously waiting for the other shoe drop. You cannot expect someone who got the "things cannot get any worse" speech only to witness a man set himself on fire and then fail to grab the nearest fire extinguisher (To my credit, an extinguisher was grabbed.) to think any differently.

I have also discovered that I am either more mature than I thought or have never been too desperate. The last time I was desperate because of my finances, that was because I had inadvertently committed check fraud. This was from my infamous summer of 2006 where my inevitable bankruptcy declaration was hurried because I did not want Carrie Clifton to be desperate for her heroin fix.

Being desperate opened up a friend to invite some trauma. It sucks that our society is not forgiving of sexual expression because for her safety, the exploitation should have been at a strip club or onlyfans.com. Damn how COVID-19 has fucked everything up, but we should be cheering on regulation when going into a questionable situation seems more acceptable than profiting from nudity. What started as a kissing flesh transaction for a low figure escalated into a need to clean off the effected areas.

Oh the times they are a changing. It use to be you stripped so you would not whore. Now, it is better to not be seen exploiting yourself than to own up to it. I suppose it is kind fitting when you look at our society right now.

A Tweet from @CatBusRuss:

If DHS operatives are going to jump out of windowless vans to kidnap protesters, they should at least offer candy before hand. Pedophiles have more class than Trump.

A response form Samuel C Winchester

He (I) should read the Patriot Act that Joe Biden voted for.

Instead of denouncing the harm our president is doing, Trump's supporter find a way to blame the victims. As long as it protects their wallets and churches, the evils of the actions are warranted. That may be thinking too highly of the right.

I know it is a crime to wish death or harm on a sitting president, but what about being put in a Jigsaw trap with Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Jared Kushner? In the last few films, the primary traps allowed for everyone to survive. If he can be an ideal person, death or hindering harm should not befall him.

So that is my pitch for "Saw 10". I would like Twisted Pictures to know that I would take everything into consideration from the previous films to make it work. Perhaps the writers of the last of the series to be released at this point should have tried to direct that feature as well to ensure the continuity was considered.

movieposters2.com

Jigsaw (2017) - 1 hour 32 minutes

It has been 10 years since John Kramer, the mass murderer known in the press as Jigsaw, died, but a desperate criminal informant claims that there is a new game. There are five players and if he does not initiate the game, he will be killed. Not soon after he is critically wounded by a barrage of police gunfire to prevent the proposed game, joggers discover a corpse dangling above a path, head stuck in a bucket. Well, half a head as ME Logan Nelson and Detective Halloran would soon discover.

The corpse also featured the Kramer trademark of a piece of flesh being removed in the shape of a puzzle piece. Being a thorough examiner, Logan finds a flash drive left in the wound. It has a label on it which states that "Now there are four" and it contains an audio file. When the file is played, it says the games have started again and demands the police do their job and provide justice so these contests will no longer be necessary. This voice sounded like and is soon verified as Kramer's.

Things only get more eerie when under the first victims fingernails is Kramer's blood. Despite his death, THE Jigsaw is the prime suspect. Halloran cannot accept that and is certain that it is either Nelson whose Iraq War PTSD must have gotten the best of him or Nelson's assistant and Jigsaw fangirl Eleanor. Impulsive and brash is not how anyone should handle a Jigsaw scenario, so it seems the other four players are the only ones who can save their selves provided they will purge themselves of their sins.

Hopefully 4K Blu-ray sales will pick up so that resellers like Disc/Mega Replay will encourage customers to sell them. "Jigsaw" might be the first I would sell. This may have been a result of a thorough third/fourth viewing. It came with a digital copy, so what would I be losing.

I assure you that I did genuinely enjoy this film. After my disappointment in "Saw III", I know you cannot straight up buy these films, so I used a discount code at Red Box to judge this feature first. The eighth entry features a clever story which harkened back to my favorite installment "Saw II" and the traps are as ingenious as ever. That felt very refreshing being a devotee to the series and having missed domestic torture porn the past seven years.

If you are into this series for the formula, this is definitely worthwhile. There are not really any strong performances, but we never expected those in these films after Tobin Bell's John Kramer had been working from beyond the grave (sorry Costas Mandylor and Sean Patrick Flannery). The gore is toned down, but the climax makes it up to all those sickos who focused on that instead of the stories. Disappointment only kicked in after multiple rewatches because someone decided to ditch the past stories.

I will not get into the time frame of the original seven films which concluded in 2010. If everything wrapped up in the "Saw" world in 2007, so be it. The film's twist ends up being too clever resulting in continuity errors and ignorance of the Jigsaw associates that were established after the second film. This is a major flaw because the story flows to quickly, and to leave out the concept of Jigsaw followers results in impossibilities playing out. There is too much for our primary character to do and make this tale seem believable.

Besides for asking of an extra effort to disband disbelief, you catch during rewatches that the games do not play out the same way. I know the latter half of the heptalogy focused on the importance of predicting the actions of the players, but the predictions Jigsaw made are far too on the nose. He could only do that if he is interacting with the players which is a no-no. You end up realizing why they are not repeating this format for the franchise's next feature, "Spiral".

"Jigsaw" is definitely worth a rent for any horror fan. It is a mandatory view for any fan of the "Saw" series, but like the weaker entries in the series, the viewer cannot be overly scrutinizing. This results in it being a hard fit in terms of series continuity, thus a wrong piece for your "Saw" home media collection.

If you choose to purchase it, be sure to redeem that digital code A.S.A.P. Universal and Sony are cracking down on expiration dates.

90-min at $9.99 - "Rambo: Last Blood", Stallone Is a Sad Liam Neeson

 

90 min. DVD dot Com - "Dr. Chopper" and the Sad Reality of Costas Mandylor and Christmas

*Time of this passage: December 17, 2019.

How do I put the façade of giving a shit about the holidays for a living? I guess 17 years in the customer service field has just wired me that way. What other things will I do for money? I am open to suggestions. The life experience I have makes the range of options pretty vast, at least known.

Actually, I should be taking suggestions on what I can exchange for support in producing "Main Event of the Dead", my pro-wrestling themed zombie comedy. If you have suggestions in terms of promotion, let me know at russthebus07@gmail.com. I will be more than happy to email you a story treatment.

As a typed all that, the solution to why I put up with replying "Merry Christmas" to the constituents of the traitorous Rodney Davis could be a passive aggressive outlet of cursing the season to my non-furry loved one. Perhaps I should turn this into a pro-atheist rant.

Jesus sucks the life out of you under false pretenses. Take it back. The worst that could happen is Satan will accept you. Have you seen or read "Lucifer"?

Since I am letting my better quarter (Eva the Cat still gets a half) use the kitchen to bake and inevitably leave a mess for me to clean, buying a video game on sale is a deserved treat. And "Star Wars" has given me inspiration for another blog post. It was going to be featured in this one, but after my holiday disparagement opening, the post would be too long. If I do not post about my experience watching "Dr. Chopper", what was the point of it?

Really, what was the point of "Dr. Chopper" existing?

In the late 1980's, premier plastic surgeon and custom-motorcycle enthusiast Dr. Fielding went off the deep end in his search for immortality. Instead of modifying bodies to extend life, he decided to just take the best parts off healthy persons.

With a little surgical wizardry, he would replace his decrepit body parts with the parts he swiped. He thought this would allow him to live forever. Once the authorities caught wind of this, the man who became better known as Dr. Chopper vanished without a trace. But over the next 20 years, Lake Tatonka has been littered with loose body parts.

It seems law enforcement had deemed that the responsibility solving the case belongs to drunk and suicidal Forest Ranger Terrell to figure out. Hopefully, he can do that before Nick and his fiancé Jessica take their friends up to check out the cabin his late mother had left him.

Hopes that "Dr. Chopper" might be a good B-movie diminished when it was obvious that this was a direct from VHS tape transfer to the DVD format. If that seems nonsensical, let me rephrase it this way. York Entertainment produced all the VHS copies of this video, and then they connected a VHS player via composite cables to a DVD recorder to create a master DVD to distribute. I had put just as much, if not more, in creating bootlegs to tape-trade at indie wrestling shows.

At least the production of this B-movie (I cannot call it no budget because of the lead actor casting.) means I can definitely distribute "Main Event of the Dead" (ask for a treatment of this wrestling zom-com script by emailing russthebus07@gmail.com) once we complete the production. I guess that made it worth 86 minutes of boredom "Dr. Chopper" provided.

Sorry to point out the boredom. That is a bit of a spoiler because the trailer for a similar York Entertainment film, "Corpses" with Jeff Fahey, seemed to have some potential. The physical picture sucked, but it does not mean that the script and acting would be devoid of charm. Even the credits being just VHS-C font (made famous by "America's Funniest Home Vides") on a black screen could not take that potential away.

The brief, nudity-free lesbian scene in an actual trailer does that.

Once we start the murder spree, you find yourself watching the least effort that you will ever see in a B-movie. Somewhat successful actors like Costas Mandylor ("Picket Fences", "Saw (3-7)") and Chelsey Crisp ("Fresh of the Boat", regular TV guest star) at least show that they can act, but the lack of creative kills, special effects that are nothing more than moist Halloween decorations, and an overall lack of direction makes me certain that the chopper was where all the budget went.

The story feels like it was a poorly constructed one act play. Ironically, a high school stage is where the climax occurs. My biggest issue with adaptations of plays to screen is that the dialogue tends to be structured to be heard with no interruption. Adaptations can work, but the story or the dialogue has to be interesting. This is not "The Philadelphia Story".

If you had some humorous dialogue and interesting murders, you might have a precursor to "Evil Dead: The Musical". You cannot sell an audience people getting stabbed with no fighting back. Shakespeare would throw poison in to mix things up, Sondheim was a genius, and who does not like man-eating plants. If there was one of these things, I may be sympathetic to "Dr. Chopper". Then I would think about how many bad Costas Mandylor films I have seen.

Mandylor can be a solid character actor, but features never seem to write him that way. I did not mind him as the second Jigsaw, and I cannot say I minded him in the live-action remake of "Fist of the North Star". I am a fan of the "Saw" franchise and will give any Gary Daniels movie a chance. But after sitting through this and "Immortally Yours" (aka "Kiss of the Vampire"), he is just an actor who has no discern for work.

There was at least one name attached with the production of "Immortally Yours" and "Dr. Chopper". Since the production values are damn near the exact same, this indicates that Mandylor does not mind doing shit films. Michael Caine may bad movies, but at least Universal went to the trouble of bringing in as much sea water as possible to the set of "Jaws: The Revenge" to make the feature look authentic. Caine at least requires you to make an effort.

"Dr. Chopper" makes me curse the backwards compatibility of all Blu-ray players. You cannot always count on streaming. Once my VHS player dies, I cannot watch a physical copy of the Sony Distributed Gary Daniels classic "Heatseeker", but DVD.com will have no issue sending me a copy of this piece of garbage. Does that seem right to you (provided you know your opinions of Albert Pyun films do not matter)?

Just because your movie has no production values does not mean you are excused from exerting effort when you film it. "Dr. Chopper" should be watched by the director Lewis Schoenbrun friends and family only. He made a thing that is worth being put on the fridge for a week and then forgotten. This is nothing more than a macaroni painting wanting to be a film. That tells me the world has too much pasta (and they won't share it with me).

The Chopper is back, and it’s never been so cool

https://metro.co.uk/2014/08/13/the-chopper-is-back-and-its-never-been-so-cool-4831955/amp/